Page 60 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
“Seriously. You are freakishly strong.”
“Shhh.” She was pressing against him, squeezing in close and he was the worst kind of villain in the world because he slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.
“Are we doing themakeoutso no one suspects usthing?” Ethan whispered.
Her big, brown eyes and soft, full lips were just inches away. Even in the shadows, he could see her thinking. “Maybe?”
He swallowed hard. “Maybe? Or definitely?”
“If he catches us, yes,” Maggie whispered, but she didn’t look away.
“It’s a staple of the genre.”
“As tropes go...”
He felt her breath on his lips. “It’s a classic.”
They were all alone in a house full of people, and Ethan tried to remember that she hated him,but her fingers were in his hair and they were standing so close that he could feel her breathe and—
“Hey, Maggie?” Had her skin always been so soft? “Do you want to make—”
But before he could finish, she was going up on her toes and he was bending down. Maybe they met in the middle? Or maybe they collided? Maybe it was an accident, or maybe it was fate?
The only thing Ethan knew for certain was that their lips touched. Just a brush. A graze. A whisper. But it lingered. It lingered and then it deepened and then Ethan was drinking her in, her taste and touch and little sighs. He wanted to memorize this moment. And he wanted to forget it ever happened—burn it from his brain because something so deep and arterial would someday leave him bleeding out.
But then Maggie sighed his name and gave him more of her weight and Ethan’s mind went blank. He forgot about Eleanor and Sir Jasper and even Christmas. Ethan forgot his own name.
“Damn it, Rupert!”
A voice broke through the silence and Maggie pulled away. There was something like horror on her face. Horror and panic and regret. She was going to spiral—
“Maggie,” Ethan whispered. “Don’t—”
She was going to run, but then the voice came again from the corridor. “When you asked me to spend the holidays away from my family, you said it was an emergency!”
Maggie froze. It was almost like the kiss hadn’t happened when she whispered, “Dr. Charles...”
All Ethan could do was stare at her swollen lips.
“But now here we are”—the doctor gave a low, dry laugh—“trapped in the middle of nowhere with a killer on the loose. Kirk and the girls are going to be terrified when I don’t get off that train tonight, and I can’t even call them because I’m stuckhere. With you and your awful sister and terrible cousin.”
“Don’t call that woman my cousin,” Rupert snapped.
Cece?Maggie mouthed, and Ethan nodded. It was the only thing that made sense.
“I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t care what strings you canpull at the hospital. I didn’t sign up for shootings and poisonings and... I didn’t sign up for this!”
They heard footsteps coming closer and, on instinct, Ethan spun, pinning Maggie to the wall. Shielding her. Keeping her out of sight and out of harm.
“Gregory! Come now. My aunt is delusional. That’s why you’re here, remember?” Rupert laughed again but trailed off like a man who’d just realized nobody finds him funny.
“In light of everything that’s happened, her fear seems quite justified to me,” Dr. Charles shot back.
“Now, Gregory. We agreed. My aunt is no longer of sound mind. Someone needs to take over her affairs,” Rupert prompted like a parent getting a child through a play. “For her own good.”
“You said I’d have a chance to examine her, see her paranoia for myself.”
“Well.” Rupert huffed. “I should think the fact that she’s run away just before Christmas would prove my point quite nicely.”
